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No. 2. COMMONWEALTH LIBRARY. Aug., 1895. 


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I AM BUT ONE 


JUSTICE, NOT CHARITY 


A NATIONALIST POEM 


BY 


HARRISON T. HICKOK 

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I AM BUT ONE 


JUSTICE, NOT CHARITY 


A NATIONALIST POEM 


BY 

HARRISON T. HICKOK 



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( SAN 15 




NEW YORK 

COMMONWEALTH COMPANY 

28 Lafayette Place 



Copyright, 1895, 

BY 

Commonwealth Co. 



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I AM BUT ONE 


“The amount of effort alone is pertinent to the question of 
desert. All men who do their best do the same. A man’s endow¬ 
ments, however godlike, merely fix the measure of his duty.” 

Edward Bellamy. 

This is the great ethical pedestal on which mankind have re¬ 
fused to stand, but on which they must finally place their feet or 
perish. The maxim, “To every man according to his deeds,” is a 
false one, and the world will make no substantial progress till 
it is abandoned. H. T. H. 

An. aged man with bowed head 

Was leaning at the wall as if 

Half sleeping with exhaustion and 

With care. His beard was long and white 

But not yet quite unkept. His clothes 

Were thin and in the cool crisp air 

Protected ill the frame whose blood 

Coursed feebly through the veins. He was 

Not neat. The garments that he wore 

Were all he had. There was no change. 

What yesterday he wore he wore 

To-day and must another day 

And on till death should set him free. 

His face was like a man who thinks: 

His forehead high, his mouth and and nose 

Of Grecian mold. Tall, slim and like 

A man of better days he stood, 

Unconscious of the throngs who passed 

Him by: and they in turn could not 

Single this man from out the throng 

That cold and hungry and forlorn 

Choke up the ways of every mart. 


4 


I Am But One. 


On this old man there was no badge 

To say “ I more than yonder man [thought 

Should claim your thought.” And why your 

At all ? Why should the water and 

The air, why should the food and bed 

And garments that we wear be care 

Of others than ourselves? As this 

Old man still stood and faced the bleak 

West wind, there passed him by a fair 

Young form with face aglow and step 

Elastic and with garments warm. 

She had not in her person known 
Of hunger nor of cold nor want 
Nor feebleness nor yet neglect. 

The sufferings of other men 

She oft had seen, but only in 

The mass. There comes a time when we 

See, for the first, the things we oft 

Before have seen, when first we touch 

The things we oft have touched and hear 

The sounds that oft have fallen on 

The ears and waked no echo in 

The mind. There comes a time when there 

Will rise to consciousness in us 

What has been seen and thought and felt 

Before, but only as the brute 

Sees, thinks and feels, unconscious and 

Without a throb of pain. This girl 

Had passed, before, a thousand poor 

And wretched men half clad, half fed 

And with despair upon the brow, 

But she had seen them not; and oft 
Had said, “This is but what must be. 


A Nationalist Poettu 


5 


No time it has not been. This path 

If humbly trod will bring us near 

And nearer still to God.” This half 

Unconscious she had said. She said 

What those before had said. Her voice 

Was but the echo of the past 

And she knew not the meaning of 

The words she spoke. What could have made 

Her see this man as feeble and 

Forlorn he leaned against the wall? 

And yet she saw him; and she paused 
And touched his hand that bloodless hung 
Close pressed against his side. ’Twas cold 
And thin, but not the hand of one 
Who in the trenches delves for bread. 

A chill ran through his frame as by 

The touch the currents that had well 

Nigh ceased to flow began again 

Their coursing through the veins. “ Old man,” 

She said, “ this is no place for one 

So feeble and so old, thus clad, 

To stand and sleep and face the cold.” 

He raised his head. “ Pass on,” he thought 
The voice had said. But when he saw 
This fair young face, this tender look, 

He knew it was not written in 

The book, that ’twas not form nor law, 

But heart speaking to heart. He roused 
Himself still more. “Old man,” again 
She said, “how dare you stand and face 
This chill night air? Your hand is cold 
As if the flesh and blood were run 
In death’s most cruel mold. Go get 


6 


I Am But One. 


Yon food and bed and fire and rest.” 

The old man smiled a ghastly smile. 

So hopeless was his smile, so kin 
Of hell, so lost to heaven that she 
In very horror started back 
And would have hurried on, and would 
Have fled to escape the man as if 
Already dead. He checked her with 
His feeble, low and plaintive voice, 

With words so fitly spoke she saw 
Behind the hunger, cold and rags 
A jeweled mind, culture and worth. 
“Lady,” said he, “speak not of food 
And bed and fire to me; speak not 
Of rest. I am but one to see 
The rising of another sun. 

In dark despair, millions, beside, 

Are living in a land so rich 
With all that man could ever need 
That neither hunger, cold nor thirst, 

Nor want of rest should ever come 
To mar a single human breast. 

Yet more than half the race, like me,” 

He said, “lack something from the full 
Supply of bread; lack something from 
The garments that should form a shield 
From cold to keep them ever warm; 

Lack something from the buoyancy 
Of hope, as faintly or in dire 
Despair they grope through all their lives. 
I am but one. When I am fed, 

What may be done for me is not 
A step to set my fellows free. 


A Nationalist Poem. 


7 


To take through pity fire and food 
And bed is but another way, ” 

The old man said, “to tell us we 
Are only slaves whom nature has 
Made free. The coal that through the earth 
In veinlets runs is but the rays 
Of countless setting suns. Yet men 
More strong, more cunning and more fleet, 
Have seized upon this stored-up light 
And heat; and when men freeze, no voice 
Is raised to say, ‘ Give this man what 
Is his, not charity.’ When rays 
Of light mingled with heat and rain 
Have built vast fields of waving corn 
And grain, the old, the weak, the blind,” 

He sadly said, “are not the men 
Who freely eat this bread. ’Tis doled 
To them as when the keeper feeds 
The lions in their den. Most base 
Those lions if they roar and chafe 
And make their generous keepers feel 
Unsafe; if they with cruel hate 
Would tear the men who placed and who 
Have fed them there. Bad and most base, 
These men, if they have hotly spumed 
To take as gifts what they themselves 
Have earned. Base, too, and dangerous 
If he asserts his right to life 
And liberty. Kind maid, I read 
The pity in your face at this 
Unnatural and foul disgrace. 

Stop not with me: ask only why 
Good men are left exposed to die 


8 


I Am But One. 


Whose only sin is that they would 

Not hoard while others languished round 

An empty board; whose virtues were 

At once the potent spell to drag 

Them headlong down from heaven to hell; 

Whose thought of others would not let 

Them rest happy in gains while those 

Were left distressed. Know well, kind maid, 

That neither saint nor sage can solve 

This puzzling problem of the age 

Till they admit that which we all 

May see, that no man need to live 

In poverty. No falser view 

Is held beneath the sun than that 

Men merit for what they have done. 

If eye is quick and nimble is 
The hand, if brain is active and 
At full command—if with these powers 
The gifted man can do with ease 
The work that would be done by two, 

While each is wholly faithful to 
His trust, they share alike if the 
Award be just.” 

“ Old man, O, much 
I pity your sad lot, but these 
Vagaries surely help you not. 

Since time began, men have believed 
It true that all should have reward 
For what they do. If one can clothe 
A hundred naked men while yet 
Another man can clothe but ten, 

Who that would honor right can fail 
To say the first should have the ten 


A Nationalist Poem. 


9 


Fold better pay? Who hired these men 
Would be adjudged a fool if he 
Should think to follow such a rule. 

Who holds this rule, if he were judged 
As sane, would with the struggling mass 
Compete in vain. The product ’tis 
That regulates the fee. Motive 
Has but a moral quality. 

He who can most produce can bring 
Most pay for him to whom he gives 
His hours away. Another view 
Were fatal to the man. Not ‘what 
We wish/ but simply ‘what we can/ 

The old are less productive and 
Must face this problem bravely in 
A losing race. Here charity 
And love and hope unite to cheer 
The loser in this bitter fight. 

Here see the rich, with sympathy 
Profound, on men impoverished 
To scatter blessings round. See them 
The noblest Christian grace display, 
Giving in pity half their wealth 
Away. These painful contrasts have 
Their better side; one fosters grace, 

The other humbles pride. The rich 
In ofivinof emulate the skies; 

They nobly stoop to help the poor 
Man rise. He takes their gifts and when 
His prayer is said ’tis sweetly this, 

‘ Only our daily bread.’ Some men 
Want more; but these are well content 
To meekly take that which has thus 


IO 


I Am But One. 


Been sent. So in sweet harmony 
These all must live—the half to take. 

The other half to give! ” 

The old 

Man heard. Said he, “Yes, motive is 
A moral quality, and deeds 
However many and how great 
Have as a measure only a 
Commercial rate. Most that you say 
Is quite too sadly true. Men must 
Be measured now by what they do. 
Another standard would this world 
O’erthrow and on its ruins plant 
New seeds another world to grow— 

A world so new that nowhere could 
You see men making ills and then 
The remedy; making men poor 
Then for awhile, instead, op’ning 
The purse to give these wretches bread; 
Taking their labor without pay, 

Then giving half the wealth, they took, 
Away—a world so altered that 
You could not see men taking toil 
And giving charity/’ 

“ Can such 

A world as you have named be had— 

A world so good with those who make 
It, bad ? If hearts are wicked and if 
Men from birth cling not to heaven 
But only cling to earth, how can 
The darkness ever change to light, 

How can the day be ushered from 
The night ? The struggles and the cares 


A Nationalist Poem. 


II 


Of life, the competitions and 
The deadly strife will help high heaven 
To bring the world you say where all 
That’s bad is driven quite away.” 

“ Banish the thought that men are bad. 
Nowhere not even bad men wish 
To see this cold, this hunger and 
This pain in me. Like you, their hearts 
Are tender. In the strife they seek 
Alone the guarding of their life. 
Self-preservation and an equal 
Right they will maintain. This sense 
Of right, so strong within their breast, 

They will maintain against the right 
Of all the rest. If pain must come 
To one, that pain must be outside 
Of self—to others, not to me. 

Give men this pledge of equal right 
And there will be in them no mark 
Of base depravity. Motives 
Will then be pure. The moving force 
Will be the common good. If aught 
Is left in man of bad, ’twill be 
But sickness, not depravity.” 

“ ’ Tis strange that one so wretched can 
Defend the nobleness of man; 

While I, of every earthly good 

Possessed, would claim man base and heaven 

Only blessed.” 

“You see, fair maid, 

With but a partial eye. You ask 


12 


I Am But One. 


What is, but not the reason why. 
Deceived, you see the sun mount in 
The sky. ’Tis the horizon nods 
His passing by. You see men fight 
In the unequal strife to gain 
Full oft but the bare crumbs of life. 
Passions are but the passive sun. 
Conditions nod and wildly urge 
Them on. Change the conditions and 
You see how sweet the most disturbed 
Of lives may be. When motives to 
The wrong are dead, each virtue to 
Each virtue will be wed, and on 
The ruins of a world of strife 
Will rise a great and newer world 
Of life. I have no hate for those 
Who do me ill. They mar my life, 

They make my hours sad—the men 
Are good but the conditions bad. 
Politically now some men 
Are free, but all the world are slaves 
Industrially. Let this brave end 
Be reached, and surely I should not 
Be left in age to basely die 
In cold and hunger and without 
A bed, while in the mines and on 
The distant plain slumbers the coal 
And wave the burdened fields of grain, 
While from the seas the swimming fowls 
May shed their glossy down to make 
For me a bed. With toiling men, 

Let this belated thought have birth, 

‘Not justice there,’ but ‘justice here 


A Nationalist Poem. 


n 

On earth,’ and like a whirlwind from 
The darkened skies, out of the gloom 
Of ages, there will rise a man 
So good, in him one could not trace 
More than the shadowy image of 
A race like that we see steeped to 
The dregs in direst misery. 

Check not the noble impulse that 
Would stay my passing grief and drive 
My pain away, but give it scope 
And bid it crush the seeds that men 
Call flowers, but which are rankling weeds. 

Bid it the flames of discontent 
To fan till all shall freely own 
The brotherhood of man. In her 
Poised balance, Justice then will see 
No man outweighed by property. 

Give scope to that grand passion which 
Would shed its burning tears at sight 
Of men ill fed, and bid it seek, 

Amid the social strife, a new 
And higher social form of life, 

Where no brave heart by one false step 
Can be a hopeless wreck upon 
A seething sea; where blameless ills 
That on the weak may fall become 
The common heritage of all; 

Where no success in life shall e’er 
Depend on this, that there, forsooth, 

The fortunes of another man 
Must end, but where the good of each 
Must always be the fullest good 
Of the community. Life is 


14 


I Am But One . 


Too short, fair maid, that we should try 
The pool, replenished, to dip dry. 

’ Twere easier and better far 
To turn the turbid rills that come 
Full laden from the distant hills, 

And only let the water that 
Is sweet fill the fair lakelet at 
Our feet.” 

“Mankind with mankind here 
Must strive, heaven keeping but the strong 
And fit alive. The weak must die. 

In this, high heaven can see evolved 
For man his highest destiny. 

To him each flower and bird and tree 
Evolves alike. ‘All things subsist 
By elemental strife: passions 
Are but the elements of life.’ 

Man like the rest is overwhelmed 
With care—his sorrow here and his 
Enjoyment there. Through all the chain 
We see this thread ascend, the birth 
Pains here and heaven at the end. 

How turbulent soe’er our lives 
May be, ’tis but the rooting of 
The tree by winter storms. Is man 
Not bold if he shall say that he, 

Than heaven, has a better way ? ” 

“’Twas always thus, O, erring maid. 

Man seems but bold who cannot be 
Afraid to say that when the weak 
Are tortured by the strong there is 
And must be something wholly wrong. 


A Nationalist Poem . 


15 


Nature seems cruel; everywhere 
Seems blind below the suffering stage— 

The realm of mind. Here man must rule 
And in his might must say, ‘ I know 
And will perfect a better way. 

The free-born mind within me shall 
Not tread the cruel pathway of 
The dead past ages. I will be, 

Like the Great Heart above, full free 
Of every bond but the sweet bond 
Of love.’ Go, maid, and thoughtful learn 
How base is a philosophy 
Of life which in the sweetest phrase, 

* Be unto others good and true 
As you would have them be to you.’ 

Then with confession, O, most base, 

Most base, makes man a runner in 

Competing race where he who fails 

In the unequal strife wrecks oft 

The future of his earthly life, the 

Lives of others, helpless and 

Forlorn—the lives of innocents 

As yet unborn, blots out all hope 

And makes the hopeless feel his first 

Kind respite when the naked steel 

Cuts off his life. No principle 

Of ethics can be right that, while 

It teaches love, will yet coquette 

With might. When men have learned to think 

Aright, the choice will be between 

A race cut off from earth and one 

So fully free that there will be 

No man that o’er his fellow-man 


I Am But One. 


Will have a mastery—no man 
That e’er will wish or dare to say 
That other creatures shall obey 
His royal nod. The holiday 
Of life will be to place the crown 
Upon the human race, which, till 
This hour, with base subservience 
Has been placed on the heads alone 
Of men who, most unhappy, did 
Not, could not see in this strange act 
A fatal destiny. Go, go, 

Kind heart, and join that better few 
Who would forget the old and who 
Would make the new a true and just 
Philosophy, where help, not strife, 

Shall smooth, not roughen, all the paths 
Of life; where frankness, not deceit, 
Where hope, not fear, shall help 
To bring us nearer and more near 
To the divine, the perfect stage 
Of love—within us and above. 

I, Tender Heart, ‘ I am but one.’ ” 




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